


dear, ocean

by 3minswriting, trustmeallnight



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Baekho - Freeform, M/M, okay maybe one tag, tags in notes, this is a clutter free zone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3minswriting/pseuds/3minswriting, https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustmeallnight/pseuds/trustmeallnight
Summary: #1: short peeks into windows for my caring butterfly(all things baekho!)#2: tiny words sprinkled like rain for my hardworking queen(jbaek things with a touch of everyone/baekho)#3: we'll see
Relationships: Kang Dongho | Baekho/Kim Jonghyun | JR
Comments: 13
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tags: parallel universe (sci-fi), angst, bittersweet ending
> 
> notes: 
> 
> well, well, well look who's done it >:) i hope you enjoy it though puppy eye emoji 
> 
> also if this shows up anywhere else that ain't none of our business HM HMM

In Italy, Dongho finds the next letter tucked away in a hole made by a brick that was ripped away and flung to the floor, its broken pieces scattered over the alley he stepped into. The corner of a worn parchment paper quietly rustles in the breeze that tears through the narrow alley, and as he digs into the hole, dirt and spider webs clinging onto his moist fingers, the paper along with its sealed wax emblem comes out. 

Despite the tears and rotting, Dongho unrolls the letter, pocketing the wax circle in his pocket, and just like the others, the handwriting is neat, dark, and addressed to him.

* * *

_ Dongho, _

_ How is Italy?  _

_ It’s beautiful for me, that’s for certain. It’s a bit unsettling to walk past the people who look on with curiosity and confusion, but I find that staring upwards relieves it all. The sky is always so clear. Never a spot up there that could make anyone think that this isn’t perhaps a figment of their most wanted desires. _

* * *

Dongho looks up at the sky, a thin strip of a vivid blue that peeks out from the buildings overhead. Indeed, there isn’t a single blemish that dots it. 

* * *

_ Is that why I always feel so late to see you? It’s all an endless color from where I stand, and at times it’s as if the world has stood still in its spin.  _

_ Do you ever feel as stuck as I do holding these letters? _

_I want to hurry up and find you already._ _It’s impossible, maybe the tiniest bit of possible, but now I desperately wish for a sign._

_ Do you exist? Are you here, in Italy and also lost yourself under its chestnut roofs and white walls? Or are you already an ocean away and I’m too late? _

_ Perhaps, you don’t even exist in the same timeline as me. I can always feel you, but you leave no trace for me to follow. Then, I should be the one stuck in time, leaving these notes not to find you, but for you to figure me out. _

_ It’s odd, I’m not angry. I’m just happy knowing Kang Dongho exists, and that he will find the letters that the one who loves him has been sending from all over the world, all over time. _

* * *

When Dongho unfolds the letter once again, the last crease evening out under his loose grip, the words are stained.

* * *

_ It’s west now, right? _

_ It’s been beautiful here, but I’m not satisfied just yet. I haven’t found you, and you haven’t found me.  _

_ That’s enough for you to keep going, right?  _

_ I want to see you already. _

_ I’ll catch you along the waves, _

_ Kim Jonghyun _

* * *

America, Dongho finds, is loud.

Maybe it’s the tall buildings that loom in the sky, trapping him in with the echoes of phone calls and clicking heels, or maybe it’s the bustle of busy lives rushing past in a constant stream. It’s just a bit much, not the quiet Jeju waves that was the background music to his journey.

The gray sky, has been gloomy since the final hour of his plane ride, is lifeless to his search. Everyone, everything, a blur and a crawl all at once.

In New York City, Dongho chases the white paper that dances along the sporadic breeze.

* * *

_ Dongho, _

_ The ocean was beautiful, wasn’t it? Endless, sure, but glittering. It was one of the more memorable trips. _

_ You know, finding these places are pretty difficult. I wouldn’t want anyone to steal these things, even if I could just be talking to myself. They could be useless, these stupid love letters, but I can’t stop writing.  _

* * *

Jonghyun’s letters have teetered on the edge of personal years ago. After his childhood, his hobbies, his favorite colors, what else was there to leave behind except the feelings dug deep in his chest?

It’s odd, almost forcing a chuckle, when he knows all about Jonghyun’s heart yet can’t place what shape his eyes are.

* * *

_ Honestly, I’m tired. _

_ Everything is beautiful and glimmering, yet I can’t bear it when I can’t have you.  _

_ Do you feel the same way I do? _

_ Do you even feel? _

_ I hate talking to myself. No one knows me like you do, yet I don’t know you. What cruel lives have we lived for this? _

_ Why does this enchanting name repeat itself like a worship if its temple is achingly empty? _

* * *

Dongho gasps as the letter in his hands begins to tear. It starts at the top, near his name, a tiny rip in the paper that spreads across the greeting. How a mountainous tree could bend so easily into a fragile piece of his life right in his hands is a sight that frustrates.

* * *

_ Maybe I should stop looking, right?  _

_ I’m halfway around the world, yet I can’t find the one I want to call my own. _

* * *

The rips pass like river streams, diverging at the very ink that makes them. A small piece lands on the ground, floating delicately to land at his feet. 

* * *

_ Tell me, Dongho, would you miss me if I destroyed everything we ever knew? _

* * *

Amongst the busy New York crowd, Dongho watches as every word dedicated to him lands to the ground. The wind is still for now, the words of his dearest stranger reflecting back to his empty hands.

Dongho, who has only ever followed, picking up these stray, always there, letters, always a step after Jonghyun, picks up the fallen pieces. The fragments of his longing heart, the damp yet durable pieces of paper, Dongho picks them up and carefully pieces them back together.

* * *

_ Kim Jonghyun, _

_ You asked me if I ever feel what you do. And I laughed. _

_ Of course I do. I’m human, after all. Whatever you’ve seen, I’ve followed, and I’ve loved it all. _

_ I’m not sure if it’s possible, to love someone who you’ve never spoken to since the day you were born, but just like how I watched your very words tear to pieces, I miss you. _

* * *

For the first time in his life, Jonghyun grabs at a letter that floats with the wind. It’s messily taped together, the remnants of his own stained pen hastily put back together with quick intent.

Jonghyun reads it, carefully, every word repeating back eyes like a slow shutter, and he does it over and over again. 

* * *

_ I’m happy to know you, yet I’m sad to have met you. Am I cruel? _

* * *

Dongho holds the wrinkled letter in his hands. The pen, with its faint ink, rolls to a stop near the gutters. His messy work, hastily scribbled and put together like a little child’s block tower, contains the piece of hope that it reaches beyond his veil.

* * *

_ You’ll still lead the way, right? I may not be behind you, but you’re there. Beyond us, sure, but still.  _

_ I want to see more with you.  _

* * *

Through blurry vision, stained with the film of his own grief, Jonghyun watches as a clear, small indent crinkles itself onto the paper. 

It forms quickly, leaving no trace of the person that pressed their warm lips against the old paper. Only the sound of a faint fold and the tint of strawberry lip balm remains to remind Jonghyun of the world beyond his reach, the love beyond the cages of his overarching heart.

He must look foolish standing in the bust streets, a torn yet put together crumpled letter in his hands. Jonghyun holds it like a treasure map, the key to his previously lost world, and closes his eyes, leaning in to meet the fresh stain of his old love. It isn’t perfect, the flesh that he wants to dig into like bread isn’t under his greedy hands, but he  _ knows. _

Dongho’s there, somehow beyond the sky yet standing right there.

* * *

_ So stop tearing up your precious words, Jonghyun-ah.  _

_ I’ll always read them, from wherever I may be, as close or as far as we can be.  _

_ My precious parallel line, isn’t it west still? I’ll see you there. _

_ Kang Dongho _

  
  



	2. where i go (will you follow?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What would Jonghyun change?
> 
> Not much, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a pointless (?) canon-verse drabble that turned out kinda more everyone/baekho than i meant it to but
> 
> here you go queen, forgive me for the poor quality ):

-

He's never really enjoyed being the leader. There's a lot of responsibility, a lot of expectation, and the worst of it is that he's always expected to step forward and speak up, out, with all the feelings fluttering in his chest stamped into a neat, presentable package that can be safely mailed to the discerning public lest something of him slips free, something real

something raw

something honest.

And damn if he hasn't had to hold back for so long already that it's become first-nature.

If Jonghyun had the chance to turn back time and do it all again

there's about a thousand things that he would do differently, including:

He'd have taken vocal training from the beginning and pushed through it in spite of the ridicule from other trainees.

He wouldn't have dyed his hair, cut it the way his sisters said was trendy because looking back on it, he'd looked a complete fool even if at the time, he'd looked just as bad as the rest.

He wouldn't have picked being a rapper because his heart was still full of songs, he wouldn't have stayed back all those nights to practice his dance and neglect his schoolwork - because when the nights grew emptier than his stomach in the years to come, Jonghyun had been terrified of that unknown, that his only skill honed was the way he could move his body and no one would pay him for it if they weren't paying NU'EST for it now, and he didn't have a degree to fall back on, he didn't have-

-the courage to step up back then, to take the hand of the one he loved and kiss it with all the intention of a marriage proposal because they'd been too young. He'd been uncertain, thinking it might complicate things too much and he'd thought of the group

_(god if he could, he would have thought less, so much less back then. But hindsight's a bitch in full 20/20 and Jonghyun lives with those memories of watching the one he loved fall for another while he stood at the sidelines)_

but the group was important. 

Jonghyun had put them first and though he wonders what would have happened if he hadn't- if he'd let his hyung be the leader, would he still have this

"Jonghyun, what're you thinking about?" Dongho tilts his head, shoulders spilling over the narrow seat backing, one leg crossed over the other.

"You." The shot has perfect aim; Dongho snaps his gaze away, scowling down at his phone instead with a hand rubbing his warming nape.

"I was being serious." whines Dongho.

"So was I." Jonghyun stands, wandering from the couch to the dining table. He throws his arms around the withdrawing shoulders that curve away from him in mild rebellion, rests his chin on the curly crown of black hair.

"Yeah." The scowl fades within seconds. It's his favourite thing about Dongho really, how the other barely holds a grudge, never stays angry 

_(he gets sad instead; Jonghyun's spent three years piecing tiny shards back together and gluing them with the smallest of touches, the lightest of teases until the smile he sees now is almost as innocent and wide as the one he'd seen when they first met_

_the one that had melted his own heart.)_

"You looked like you were thinking." Dongho continues, tapping out a slow text to Mingi that Jonghyun isn't too polite to read over his head.

"I was, I was deep in thought." Jonghyun digs his chin down, sharper than a kiss. "About you."

"Forget it." Dongho presses send to the dinner invitation before he steps out of Jonghyun's arms to wander to his room. 

Jonghyun maintains his grin as he watches the other leave

_(he'll be back, he's always come back to him in the end, no matter how many people Dongho loves)_

and waves him out the door with a kiss that tastes as bittersweet as it does softly of Dongho's perfume.

"See you later. I'll wait up for you." Jonghyun sing-songs. He leans against the front door, reaches out to tug the crease out of Dongho's white shirt collar. 

"You'll be up for your game." Dongho corrects. "I'll see you then..." He takes a few steps before he turns around, pausing. His lips part

_(they're sweet, Jonghyun knows, Minhyun knows, Mingi knows, Aron knows, but Jonghyun gets to remember where the others must try to forget)_

"`Love you." Dongho adds, and hurries for the staircase with reddening cheeks and a half-smile.

Jonghyun doesn't call out after him, lets him go. Even if he could go back and change it all, he'd never change letting Dongho go to find himself, find love despite the pain it brought him for keeping his own silence.

Jonghyun's satisfied being the leader 

because he knows wherever he goes, in the end

Dongho's heart will follow. 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twt @ 3minswriting

**Author's Note:**

> twt @ teacuptigr


End file.
